Bradie Grace has made her much anticipated debut! Here is how it all happened...My due date of June 29th came and went, but fortunately my doctor let me schedule an induction for the next day. I don't think Bradie ever wanted to come out! I had not had any contractions except for little Braxton Hicks UNTIL Tuesday morning came around. I woke up about 4:30 in the morning feeling some crampy pains that were coming on and off and realized I was having very mild contractions. Of course, I could not go back to sleep after that so I took a bath, then a shower, fixed my hair, ate breakast and made sure I had everything for the hospital. When I told Lee I though I was having contractions, he couldn't stay asleep either, so there we were just waiting to go to the hospital. We left at about 7 am for the induction and my contractions were still randomly coming anywhere from 9-20 minutes apart. When we got to the hospital, I was dilated to 4 and they started me on Pitocin. The morning went pretty quickly, no horribly painful contractions and I was dilated all the way to about 6-7, then Bradie's heart rate got really erratic. It would go really high and low and all the doctors would run in there, flip me all around to get it to stabilize. They took me off the Pitocin for a while and I completely stopped having contractions. They told me my doctor was coming in to break my water and I could get my epidural before or after...since I wasn't having any pain I decided to wait until after...BIG mistake! The contractions started coming hard, fast and soooooo painful! I thought I was going to die! As soon as I got the epidural though, I was good to go. Bradie's heart rate continued to go up and down and I was having some bleeding, so my doctor said we might have to do a c-section- either we wait and have to do an emergency one or go in and get her before anything gets worse. They put Lee in scrubs- he looked so cute! I was so scared, but had full faith in my doctor.
They wheeled us into the operating room and started on the c-section. It is nothing like TV where they cut you open and 10-15 minutes later you have a baby. I was laying there forever waiting on them to cut me up and pull her out- and yes, you can feel a lot of tugging and pressure, doesn't hurt but feels very weird. After about 30 minutes, Bradie was here! She was born at 3:52, weighed 7lbs, 13 oz, and was 20.5 inches long. They quickly showed her to me and then they started working on her. Lee got to see the WHOLE thing and be with her the entire time, I had to wait until they stitched me up which took about 45 minutes to get to hold her or get a good view. She is absolutely beautiful with a headful of dark hair and looks just like Lee. They took all of us to recovery and a little while later our whole family came in to meet her.
Here are hospital pictures-
